The Shore of Women (38 page)

BIRANA

A woman lived among this band. I wanted to speak with her, question her, but could not until we were alone. My legs were weak. I sat down again quickly; she seated herself next to me.

“We’ll be here only a short time,” she said in an undertone. “You must eat.” She pushed a pot toward me, but I was too excited to eat.

We were silent as the men danced some more. A few of their gestures disturbed me. The young ones held out their arms as if seeking an embrace, while others came as close to me as they dared and motioned at their groins. I swallowed hard and looked down.

At last the dancing stopped, and the men settled themselves on the ground as boys carried food to them. The woman said nothing to me as they ate, then held up her hand.

The Headman rose and walked toward us. “I’ll tell him we must leave now,” the woman whispered. “You must ride on the litter with me.”

“What about my companions?” I whispered back.

“Companions?”

“The man with me and the boy with the Prayergiver.”

“They cannot come with us.”

The Headman stood before me. I repressed a shudder as I gazed at his face. “I would share in your celebration,” the woman said in her husky voice, “but I wish to be with My sister aspect, and want to return to My home now.”

The Headman bowed. “It will be as You wish, Holy One.”

I glanced at Arvil. He was staring back at me. I had to do what I could for him now. I did not know this band’s customs and wondered if Arvil or Tulan would be forced to pass through what these men called a truthsaying.

I stood up. The woman tugged at my shirt, obviously wanting me to remain silent; I ignored her. “I say this to all of you.” I put as much resonance into my voice as I could muster. “This man, Arvil, who sits at My side, is the holy messenger to whom I first revealed Myself. The boy, Tulan, is My true friend. I have seen into their souls, and so there is no need for them to pass through a truthsaying with you. I ask you to let them dwell among you in peace.”

The Headman’s dark eyes glittered as he looked at me. I remembered how he had put his hands on me in the forest, how he had touched my breasts and let his hands fall to my waist; I had nearly been sick. My throat locked for a moment.

He bowed again. “Because they came with You, Holy One, we will obey and treat them as members of our band.”

I found my voice once more. “Arvil and Tulan will tend My horses.”

The Headman nodded. “It will be so, Holy One.”

I turned toward Arvil for a moment. He smiled a little. I had done all for him that I could but was suddenly afraid to leave his side, anxious as I was to find out how this woman had survived.

We were carried down to the lake on the litter, which swayed a little as we moved. I gripped one of the poles, hoping that the men would not stumble. When the litter had been set on the ground, the Headman helped us into a boat, bid us farewell, and then walked back up toward his camp.

One man climbed into the bow; the other pushed the boat out and then sat in the stern. Three more men went ahead of us in a second boat; one held a torch while the others paddled.

My companion was silent in the presence of the men. The air was warm and still; someone in the camp behind us was singing a song. His voice faded until the only sound I heard was the soft lapping of the water against the boat and paddles.

Our destination, it seemed, was an island I had seen earlier from the camp. I wondered what was there, and if other women dwelled on that island. Somehow, I doubted it; surely they would have been brought to the camp as well. I tried not to feel too disappointed. I would have one friend at least and from her could learn more about this land and what lay beyond it.

The boat whispered through a few reeds as we neared the island. Above the muddy shore, a few flat rocks jutted out from the land. The men in the other boat got out of their craft, dragged it ashore, and lifted baskets from it.

When our boat had landed, I followed the woman and the men along a trail leading up to higher ground. Near the top of this slope, land had been cleared, and a square structure of wood stood under the trees, a hide hanging in its entrance. The men set their baskets down by the doorway, put a long torch in the ground next to them, then stepped back.

“What do You wish from us?” one man asked.

“Go to your boats now,” the woman replied. “I would be alone with My companion.”

“We are blessed, Holy One,” the man replied.

When the men were gone, I embraced this woman again, unable to hold back my tears. “I never thought…”

“I know, girl, I know. I believed I’d never see another woman again.” She released me. “I had better show you my home.”

She led me to a sheltered ditch in back of the hut where I could relieve myself, and then we carried the baskets inside. As I sat down in the darkness, she went outside and brought in the torch. Wood had been set inside a fireplace circled by rocks in the center of the floor; she held the torch to the wood until a fire started to burn.

The inside of the hut was now visible. Mud and clay filled the spaces between the logs of the hut; in one corner, a wide mat was heaped with hides and furs. A wooden platform held several pots, baskets, and neatly folded garments of leather and fur.

My companion set the torch outside the door, then sat down at my side, reaching for my hand. My mind was filled with questions, but I could not speak.

“We can talk freely now.” Her low voice shook a little, as if she were as overcome as I was. “Two of the men will stay below by the boat to guard us while the others return to their camp.”

I let go of her hand. “You’ve been alone here?”

She nodded. “I must ask you—did you tell them your name?”

I realized I hadn’t and shook my head.

“Good. They don’t know mine, either. It’s best that they don’t. We’re simply the Holy Ones to them. My name is Nallei, but use it only when we’re by ourselves.”

“I am Birana.”

She leaned toward me. “You don’t know how much I’ve wanted to hear another woman’s voice. When Yerlan, the Headman, came here to tell me you were in the camp, I couldn’t believe it until I saw it for myself.” Her hazel eyes narrowed as she spoke of the Headman. “But you’ve already caused me some worry. These men were supposed to keep my secret. How did you find your way here?”

“My companion and I found our way to another camp by the lake. We were told a holy vision had been seen here, but not what it was.” I went on to tell her of how the Prayergiver had guided us after I had revealed myself to him, but said little of my first meeting with Yerlan. This woman might despise me for allowing him to touch me, for not commanding his respect.

“How long have you been here?” I asked when I had finished.

“Nearly sixteen years.”

I gasped, horrified.

“I’ve kept track of the years there.” She pointed to a place on the wall where long marks had been scratched on one of the trunks. “I was in my twenties when I came.”

I peered at her face. Sixteen years, and yet somehow she had kept her beauty. “What did you do to be expelled?”

She scowled, and I knew I shouldn’t have asked. “That’s of no importance now. Did I ask how one so young got herself expelled? You’d better forget your former life.”

I gazed at the fire. I would be staying here with Nallei; that might be easier if I did not know her crime. She might have been one like my mother, angry and quick-tempered, or her crime might have been planned and deliberate. I would be at her mercy, yet she was still another woman; I tried to take some consolation from that fact.

“I was sent out for my mother’s deed,” I said, “not my own.”

“You must have had some part in it, then, but enough of that.” Her voice was hard; I supposed that living out here had hardened her. “Wasn’t she expelled as well?”

“My mother is dead. Men killed her before seeing what she was.” I bowed my head.

“I’m sorry, Birana.” She touched my shoulder lightly. “But you’ll be safe here, as safe as you can be anywhere. These men worship me, and they’ll worship you, too. They’ll tend to all your needs. Just be cautious around Yerlan. He worships me, but…” She paused. “He is used to being in a woman’s presence now. He can sometimes forget himself.” Nallei fell silent once more, then said, “Why were you so anxious about those two who came with you? Their fate isn’t anything that should concern you.”

I was suddenly wary. I had told much to Arvil and had grown closer to him than I had intended. I remembered how he had held me, how I had let him press his mouth on mine. I had been thinking of Laissa then, but also of him, and my confusion had kept me from resisting him at first. I didn’t know what Nallei would think of Arvil; although I longed to pour out my story to her, I held back.

“They have been friends,” I said carefully, “as much my friends as a man and a boy could be. Arvil saved me from harm. I wanted to show some gratitude, that’s all.”

“I see.”

“But I want to know about you, how you came here.”

Nallei rose, went to one of the baskets, and took out a jar and two earthen cups. As she sat down, she handed me a cup and then poured. I lifted my cup and tasted the sweetness of berries. The drink warmed me; I realized it was a kind of wine.

As I drank, Nallei told me of her life.

She had been expelled in the summer. She did not tell me where her city lay. She had not been forced to brave the storms of winter, and after walking through an empty land for three days, she had reached a shrine. By then, she was out of food and water. She had been prepared to die there alone, and then two men entered the shrine.

They saw what she was immediately. She was wearing light garments, and her body even then was too rounded to be concealed by her clothes. The two men hunted for her, and when she was strong enough to travel, took her with them to their band.

“Their camp,” she continued, “was even more primitive than this one. They lived by following herds, and I worried that other tribes might find out about me, even though this band had sworn to protect me. But I listened to their stories, and learned that other bands lived in different ways. I told them I could stay among them only for a short time, and they sent out scouts to learn of other bands or places where I might live as a Holy One should.”

By the end of summer, one of the scouts had heard a story of the lake bands from a traveler, of how the men of the lake lived far from shrines and built walls around their camps. Nallei, thinking of the hardships winter would bring, decided to chance the journey and to see what the lake bands might offer. She spoke to the band that had cared for her, extracted a promise that they would, now that she had lived among them, no longer travel to shrines, and then she and three of the strongest men had set off for the lake.

Nallei paused for a moment. I sipped my wine, then said, “That band will die out. If they can’t go to a shrine to be called, they’ll have no more boys, and then…”

“I knew that. It’s not my concern. They think they’ll be honored in the next world. If they die out and can’t betray me, so much the better.” She looked sharply at me. “You show more concern for them than you should.”

I denied this as forcefully as possible. I saw then how much she still despised men, even after being among them for so long.

She poured more berry wine and went on with her tale. After a long journey and after many hardships, which she did not detail, she and her companions finally reached the land by the lake. One of the men had met his death at the hands of one of the others some days earlier; Nallei did not tell me why, but I guessed that by that time they might have come to some disagreement over her. Perhaps one had longed for her as Arvil had longed for me.

The two surviving men had been weakened by the trip; weak as they were, they still gave Nallei the greatest share of the little food they were able to find. As they pressed on, one of these men at last lay down on the frosty ground to die and asked for Nallei’s prayers. Not long after, when Nallei’s own despair made her almost ready to give up, she and the surviving man reached Yerlan’s camp. The journey had robbed that man of the last of his strength, and he died three days later.

“You see, it worked out well for me,” Nallei said. “No one was left alive who could reveal that I had come here.” Her voice held contempt, and her coldness disturbed me. I had seen the vileness and ugliness of men but had observed other qualities as well. Even my short time with Arvil’s old band had given me a bit of sympathy for them, much as some of their ways repelled me. Nallei had lived with a band for a season and three of its members had died bringing her to a safer place. She had lived among men for years and yet seemed to have no compassion for any of them. I repressed these thoughts. I had not lived outside for as long as she had; I could not judge her. Whatever she felt, she was still one of my kind.

A feast had been held, and she had dwelled in the Prayergiver’s house until a hut was built for her on the island. At Nallei’s command, the band also began to bar their camp to others and were told that they no longer had to visit the Lady’s shrines.

Nallei soon learned enough about the band to realize that the other men of the lake would have to be dealt with, and so this band was prepared when the Headmen of those other tribes came to their wall. Knowing that Prayergivers would never leave their camps again and so could not betray her, she ordered the band to summon those old men. The Prayergivers were taken to the island, and there Nallei revealed herself while the Prayergivers swore that they would not speak of what they had seen and would say only that they beheld a holy vision.

Even then, Nallei feared that she might not be safe, that some word of her existence would find its way back to the cities. But as the years passed, her worries faded. Her band, which now sought its boys from neighboring bands, would continue to serve her.

“One thing keeps me alive,” she said, “knowing that I live in spite of what my city condemned me to.” She sounded like my mother then.

She had told me her story, but some of my questions were still unanswered. How had she lived among men for so long without provoking their lust, as Arvil told me I had with his former band? I thought of how Yerlan had handled me. I could not have misread his expression, and Nallei’s full breasts and lovely face should have attracted him even more. How did she control him? What was her life like here from day to day, and how did she pass the time? How much had she revealed to the men, and how much had she kept hidden? There was no point in asking this; I would find out soon enough.